Harmony Proposes Shutting Down Its Blockchain and Migrating ONE Token to Ethereum
Key Takeaways
- •Harmony has proposed shutting down its Layer 1 network and migrating the ONE token to Ethereum as ERC-20 tokens airdropped via a final network snapshot.
- •The decision follows an August exploit in which a cross-shard receipt verification flaw allowed an attacker to mint more than 3 trillion ONE tokens across six transactions, after which Harmony rolled back its chain to an August 11 checkpoint, reversing over 109,000 transactions.
- •Multisig safes, liquidity pools, and onchain applications cannot be migrated, and users must exit smart contracts before September 10, 2026 or risk losing access to locked funds.
- •ONE traded at $0.00073, down 3.86% in the 24 hours after the announcement, while total token supply and emission rate will remain unchanged.
- •The non-binding proposal requires 51% of total stake weight participation and 66.7% support over a 21-day process, and validators can shut down nodes, become governors, or join Harmony's AI video initiative, with $1.37 million set aside for those who shut down by September 10 and serve as governors.
Harmony, the Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 blockchain, has proposed shutting down its network and migrating its native ONE token to Ethereum. Announced on Sunday, the move marks a major shift for the project, which launched its mainnet in 2019. If completed, ONE would join a small set of tokens that have abandoned their own chains in favor of living as an asset on a larger network, trading security and operations for reliance on Ethereum's more battle-tested infrastructure.
— Harmony (@harmonyprotocol) September 6, 2026
— Harmony (@harmonyprotocol) September 6, 2026
The platform cited ongoing security threats as the primary reason for the decision. "The threats posed by state actors and AI agents are too great," Harmony said in a post on X.
What Happens to the ONE Token
Harmony plans to take a final snapshot of the network at its last block. New ERC-20 ONE tokens will then be airdropped to the same wallet addresses on Ethereum.
The snapshot will cover wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts, and centralized exchange balances. Holders will not need to take any action to receive the new tokens.
However, multisig safes, liquidity pools, and onchain applications cannot be migrated. Harmony has urged all users to exit smart contracts before September 10, 2026. That deadline means users with funds locked in DeFi positions or multisig setups on Harmony risk losing access to them once the chain shuts down.
The total token supply and emission rate will remain unchanged. ONE was trading at $0.00073, down 3.86% in the 24 hours following the announcement.
The Exploit That Triggered the Pivot
The proposal comes less than four weeks after a major security exploit. An attacker discovered a flaw in Harmony's cross-shard receipt verification system that allowed valid receipts to be processed more than once.
LATEST: 🚨 Harmony plans to roll back its blockchain to Aug. 11, reversing over 109,000 transactions and 315 staking transactions, days after an exploit minted ~4 billion ONE tokens. pic.twitter.com/I0wEcGVrTX — CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) August 18, 2026
LATEST: 🚨 Harmony plans to roll back its blockchain to Aug. 11, reversing over 109,000 transactions and 315 staking transactions, days after an exploit minted ~4 billion ONE tokens. pic.twitter.com/I0wEcGVrTX
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) August 18, 2026
Using this bug, the attacker minted more than 3 trillion ONE tokens across six transactions. Harmony rolled back its network to an August 11 checkpoint, wiping out over 109,000 regular transactions and 315 staking transactions. Rollbacks of this kind are rare in the industry because they reverse finalized transactions, a step typically viewed as a last resort for proof-of-stake networks.
This was not Harmony's first major hack. In June 2022, attackers stole nearly $100 million from its Horizon cross-chain bridge. The FBI later attributed that attack to North Korean hacker groups Lazarus Group and APT38.
After the August exploit, Harmony said token migration was one option it was considering. The Sunday proposal appears to confirm that direction.
Validator Transition
Validators have been offered three choices: stop their nodes, continue as governors, or join Harmony's new AI video initiative. A pool of $1.37 million has been set aside to compensate validators who shut down their nodes by September 10, maintain their stakes, and agree to serve as governors.
The proposal is described as non-binding. Under Harmony's governance rules, passage requires 51% of total stake weight to participate and 66.7% support after a 21-day process. Whether the vote reaches that participation threshold will depend heavily on how much stake validators who shut down their nodes retain.
Harmony's new direction involves an AI video "remix economy," in which creators publish open prompts and AI agents generate clips from user forks. The team said advertising could generate tens of millions of dollars from a million users. That figure is a company projection and would require substantial user adoption to be realized.
